Blowing hot and cold…or not!

datsundrew

A2OC Donor
Having spent hours reading about heaters, air con and all the issues, I decided today to have a look under the dash to see for myself what a complete nightmare of a job it could be. A friend did a scan for me last week and there were several codes, but nothing to sweat about, In saying this there’s nothing to sweat about in the car either as the heater i crap.
The symptoms are this: it doesn’t blow hot, it doesn’t blow cold, it blows very little, the fan sounds like it’s moving a lot of air??
The scan showed heater flap issues, high pressure switch and the infamous G263 sensor. I have ordered the parts and waiting for them to arrive. I started on the drivers side, following what I’ve read on here….trims out, ally plate out, flap motor out, look up and see the G263 senso, manage to pull it out, have a look and put it all back together. I Will say it’s not the easiest job in the world, it I’ve done far worse (see my other alternator post today). I tried up, vents and down and watched the lever move, and all seems well?
i then moved over to the passenger side…glove box out, vent removed, look for the motor levers, cycle the hot and cold flap, and the screen flap both appear to work fine? At this point I remember reading about the pollen filter, maybe it’s blocked? I lay underneath trying to figure out how to remove it and soon spot the problem…..and this is weird!…. The long ‘L’ shape retainer was on back to front leaving a gaping hole at the front, and the filter was in the wrong way round and full of crap, so basically 90% of the air was escaping before it gets anywhere near the action!! As a test I removed the filter and put the plate back the correct way around….and hey presto! A short drive later and the heater is super, so that’s now another bit on order.
Its obviously been like this for some time, surely a previous owner must have noticed the lack of ventilation after a service?? Odd.
Its now a wait for parts to arrive, and hopefully I’ll have the air conditioning working too, I’ll keep you posted.
 
the a/c unit seems particularly sensitive to low voltage fluctuations - ie if the battery isn't great and you've had to crank a bit in winter especially with a 1.4tdi, you will almost certainly find that the next time you do a fault check on the Climatronic with VCDS (lite) or OBD reader there will be 4 or 5 faults in the a/c that are mostly spurious relating to flap positions etc.. A few rounds of "clear faults" in the VCDS-lite page for this ECU and then hopefully it goes back to the bare minimum that is actually a fault. This appears to have been what underpinned my car's lack of Webasto activity back before Christmas when we got cold here. When the aux heater stopped working, taking my laptop with VCDS-lite to the car and clearing the a/c faults brought function (and warmth!) back again.
 
That’s good to know. I know the webasto doesn’t work, as Chris the previous owner said, but who knows, hopefully once I replace the G263, the high pressure sensor and clear the codes it may all work. I have bought a replacement webasto , the scan pointed to a temperature sensor G18 which I believe is in the unit itself and not a normal service item?
 
Ah! The cabin filter! Never thought to check that. I could get warm-ish air from it but wasn’t great. So it actually blows hot now? Does the air conditioning actually work too?
Having spent hours reading about heaters, air con and all the issues, I decided today to have a look under the dash to see for myself what a complete nightmare of a job it could be. A friend did a scan for me last week and there were several codes, but nothing to sweat about, In saying this there’s nothing to sweat about in the car either as the heater i crap.
The symptoms are this: it doesn’t blow hot, it doesn’t blow cold, it blows very little, the fan sounds like it’s moving a lot of air??
The scan showed heater flap issues, high pressure switch and the infamous G263 sensor. I have ordered the parts and waiting for them to arrive. I started on the drivers side, following what I’ve read on here….trims out, ally plate out, flap motor out, look up and see the G263 senso, manage to pull it out, have a look and put it all back together. I Will say it’s not the easiest job in the world, it I’ve done far worse (see my other alternator post today). I tried up, vents and down and watched the lever move, and all seems well?
i then moved over to the passenger side…glove box out, vent removed, look for the motor levers, cycle the hot and cold flap, and the screen flap both appear to work fine? At this point I remember reading about the pollen filter, maybe it’s blocked? I lay underneath trying to figure out how to remove it and soon spot the problem…..and this is weird!…. The long ‘L’ shape retainer was on back to front leaving a gaping hole at the front, and the filter was in the wrong way round and full of crap, so basically 90% of the air was escaping before it gets anywhere near the action!! As a test I removed the filter and put the plate back the correct way around….and hey presto! A short drive later and the heater is super, so that’s now another bit on order.
Its obviously been like this for some time, surely a previous owner must have noticed the lack of ventilation after a service?? Odd.
Its now a wait for parts to arrive, and hopefully I’ll have the air conditioning working too, I’ll keep you posted.
 
Ah! The cabin filter! Never thought to check that. I could get warm-ish air from it but wasn’t great. So it actually blows hot now? Does the air conditioning actually work too?
It was chokka!! The air con now works perfectly, but the heater only warm still. I have a feeling the matrix is possibly blocked as even when it’s hot, it’s not, and I took the flap motor off to manually move the flap, and I can move it to both hot and cold. A bit odd.
 
Does nobody do the required routine maintenance when it is due any more? Well if the pollen filter hasn't been done, what is the fuel filter and air filter like not to mention the brake fluid and CAM BELT.
 
I’d imagine that by the time these cars get old nd see the back stret garge, the most important thing to most on a 15 plus yer old car is cost, plus I doubt some places know there was a pollen filter? I certainly didn’t until I started investigating the heater.
 
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